Biography

Diane Glancy was born in Kansas City and graduated from the University of Missouri and the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop. Her mixed heritage -- Cherokee on her mother's side, English and German on her father's -- plays a significant role in her writing, allowing her to be both inside and outside the traditions of her Native American characters. Glancy currently teaches at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her short-story collections and novels include Trigger Dance (1990), Firesticks (1993), and Pushing the Bear (1996).

Explorations

As a contemporary Native American writer, Diane Glancy doesn't avoid or soft-pedal paradoxes and problems within her culture; she talks about alcohol abuse and sexism and, mordantly, about the pretentiousness she sees among other Native American writers, who "play Indian" (in Scott Momaday's phrase) in order to awe and profit from a largely white American literary culture. The two short works in NAAL, Jack Wilson or Wovoka and Christ My Lord (1993) and Polar Breath (1993), show us the chances that she takes as a writer and the controversial nature of her art.

1. In Jack Wilson, we eavesdrop on an open-ended and important quarrel among Native American writers. But we view Wilson in context with other personalities -- including the forceful and special personality of the narrator herself. How does this context affect the way in which we ultimately see Wilson?

2. In Polar Breath, we may be able to see a response to Jack London's To Build a Fire. The plots resemble each other: in each someone alone dies in the cold. But compare the inner life of Glancy's old woman with the consciousness of London's "the man." How would you differentiate the way these people think and the experiences and beliefs they think about?

3. Who is Glancy implicitly writing to and for? Do we hear her? Or do we overhear her? Do you believe that the time is right for certain aspects of Native American experience to be explored in the way that Glancy explores them?

Other sites to consult:

• Voices from the Gaps -- Women Writers of Color, a University of Minnesota online resource that includes links to several other Glancy sites.
• Native American Authors Project, a list of online resources and books by or about Glancy.
• An Official Diane Glancy Site, a complete bibliography of Glancy's works, including their appearances in anthologies and published interviews with the author.